Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has again referred to the issues raised in the eloquent letter read out by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. First, I want to say something directly to his constituent on behalf of the House. This is what the House of Lords does. We have a big thing about Henry VIII powers and would do this with any Bill. I fully expected that and nothing I have heard has been the remotest surprise in several days of debate on the Bill. There has been not even the slightest tincture of originality. However, the problem is that the Bill, unlike the other Bills the House deals with, is not quite being dealt with in the normal way. This is part of a three-dimensional strategy of the Government. The other dimension is negotiations with the European Union. When I said weeks ago in this Chamber that these negotiations would proceed and would clearly not be badly affected by the existence of the Bill, I was greeted with howls of disapproval. In fact, we all know that they are proceeding and they have not been affected by the Bill. That is one dimension and the reality.

The other point is that this is related to a strategy that may very well fail to get the institutions of the Good Friday agreement up and running before the 25th anniversary of that agreement. This strategy may well fail, but anybody who thinks that the immediate dropping of the Bill now would help with the return of the Good Friday agreement and that strategy is also wrong. The UK Government are acting under the international agreement—Article 1(5)—which permits the Government with sovereign power to address the alienation of one or other community, as we did over the Irish language a few weeks ago and as we are now trying to do with this issue, because there is significant alienation in the unionist community over the cause of the protocol.

I simply want to make the point that, although I have been slightly cold in response to the noble Lord’s constituent’s resentment, I understand it—but this is what the House of Lords does. It will do its thing about regulatory powers, delegated powers and so on, and it ought to do that thing. What we and the noble Lord’s constituent are entitled to ask is that it should take some account of the fact that we are involved in a three-part process. The Bill is not quite just a thing in this way. It coexists with other key elements: the negotiation with the European Union, which the House now accepts, somewhat grimly, is going on unaffected by the Bill and is by far the best outcome; and the need to act under our international obligations to address the alienation of one community. I simply suggest that it would be less irritating to the noble Lord’s constituent if those points were at least acknowledged.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly follow the noble Lord, Lord Bew, because he raised a point of great importance: we are breaking our teeth on a problem with three parts. At the moment, the Government are giving us absolutely nothing in terms of reporting on what is going on in Brussels. It is simply described as a “running commentary”, as if that were answer to the problem—well, it is not.

I lived through the last time the United Kingdom negotiated with the European Union as a third country, known as our accession negotiations. The process of the negotiations was reported on regularly to both Houses of Parliament by the Heath Government. No one said that was a running commentary or the wrong thing to do. We cannot go on like this, without the slightest idea of what is going on in Brussels, because it very much affects what we are discussing here. As the noble Lord, Lord Bew, rightly said, there is not the slightest sign to show whether our discussion here, and the Government pushing this absurd legislation through in an untimely manner, are either helping or hindering what is going on in Brussels.

I plead with the Minister to programme a moment at which the Government will give both Houses a progress report—not of everything going on in Brussels, but so that we have some idea of how that piece fits in with the others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for introducing these amendments and for the focus on food and agriculture for the first time in our discussions. I understand the reasons behind the amendment, but there is a context here that has a particular sensitivity for the Government, which is that the obvious thing about the protocol is that, under the Good Friday, agreement we already have food safety and animal health bodies. Those institutions are not mentioned in this amendment, but when the Good Friday agreement was functioning it was agreed very early on that they were in play.

We have working arrangements to deal with major animal health problems and so on, and the protocol implies a totally different set of arrangements from those that any casual reader of the Good Friday agreement would say we have made no use of. We already had north/south bodies in place to handle difficulties of animal health, food safety and so on, which will now be reappearing in Brussels.

The difficulty for the Government is that they are well aware that they have to find some way to redress that, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has therefore raised a serious area of concern that requires widespread consultation. However, we will not get any real progress here without returning to the Good Friday agreement and without getting to the idea that Europe extracts powers to deal with veterinary health and food matters and lays down the law.

We already have in place north/south bodies where these things are dealt with extremely well—and have been for a long time. There is a reason why there is a problem here for the Government but, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is quite right to raise this general issue of consultation. It is very pertinent, and I am indebted to him that, for the first time in these many days of debate, we are talking about food safety, animal health and what needs to be done. If we act under the principles of the Good Friday agreement, something that is currently very controversial—such as the veterinary clauses of the protocol—could be put into a calmer place acceptable to both communities.